Dictionnaire de français App Reviews

51 add

Stuck in portrait mode

The new update is stuck in portrait mode. Please fix!!

Biiiig disaster

What did you do??? I want my old version !!!!!! This is not acceptable !!!!

What happened?

Thank you for being so fast with the update fixer! This great program is now even better!

Total disaster now fixed

Thank you for fixing the problem with the update and also for removing the application from the app store in the meantime, thus avoiding more frustrated and angry users. The dictionary is back again with a new face and all the fancy issues that I love.

Unfriendly Update

I just shake my head at this update. Why would the designers take a perfectly good app and transform it into a such convoluted one? There is no landscape ability. The colors are horrible. Larousse, I am disappointed.

A much weaker offering than the previous app

Ill write this review in English, assuming that the majority of the customers of Apples US App store are Anglophone, or are at least English-competent. Ive been using the Larousse French monolingual dictionary since its release in the US app store. Depending on how one might count the app versions, this might be considered the third major version of the app, or — really more realistically — the third app being sold under the same product name. The first one had significant and frustrating weaknesses, but the second was much better. Both of them were based around a superb underlying dictionary. This third version is a very disappointing step in the wrong direction, I think. The underlying dictionary is smaller, with fewer words, and much more abbreviated definitions. In effect, its the sort of "pocket dictionary" one might buy at the airport before visiting a new country, or a dictionary which might suffice in ones second semester of a foreign language at university. Given the existence of strong competition, such as Roberts "Le Petit Robert" and "Dixel" products, this version of the Larousse is unfortunately not even a starter, in my opinion. A dictionary which limits its definitions to the complexity of a single line is not a product which can be recommended, I dont think. You can get definitions of that quality without paying for them. Ill describe first what I think is the only area of improvement in the apps functionality: there is a true browse mode. Theres a list of "A to Z" tabs, or buttons, on the left side of the screen, which can be used to jump to a section of the dictionary beginning with that letter. Any substring typed into the search box which begins with that letter at that time will move the displayed portion of the dictionary appropriately. This is good; from there, one can browse through the entries as one might with a paper dictionary. Unfortunately, the browsing capability is implemented in a very inconsistent manner; if one begins with a search, rather than by tapping one of the letter tabs, or if one types a search string which doesnt begin with the currently-chosen letter, then one is in a search mode, with no way of using the context one has just established to move in a synchronized way to a browse view of the dictionary. In general, the program seems to have a browse mode and a search mode, but doesnt give us a clear conceptual model of how the mode change takes place, nor allows us to establish the context of the browse mode from a successful search operation. The history mechanism is mysterious and incomplete. There are arrows, which when touched, confusingly sometimes seem to mean "previous and next" in a temporal sense, but other times will move up and down the currently-displayed list. There is also a "history" tab, which lets one return to an entry one has seen in the recent past. However, sometimes words are added to the history list, but sometimes theyre not. The display of the history list is buggy, too, with mysterious strings of 1s and 0s displayed next to many of the elements. The program doesnt behave well with multitasking gestures, sometimes changing the display upon a 4-finger left-to-right swipe before crashing. Thats just a bug; bugs can be fixed. However, poor basic architectural decisions, or the choice of a crippled underlying dictionary... not so easy. Some criticisms Im made of previous versions of the app have remained unaddressed. Mysteriously, there is still no support for lemmatize searches. For instance, a search for "est" or "sommes" will fail to present "être" as a possible match. (In contrast, that works just fine in the Robert dictionaries, the Ultralingua dictionaries, and several others for which I tried the experiment.) In addition, and importantly, there is no textual phonetic representation provided — there is only a loudspeaker icon next to the words. The pronunciation facility thereby indicated depends on a network connection to work. This obviously wont work in a airplane, or if one is traveling outside of ones cellular data service area. In addition, even if one has network connectivity, its not always polite to have ones device chattering away, and its impossible to hear it in a noisy environment anyway. (More bugs here: if theres no network connectivity, a dummy error message is displayed, at least when the system language is set to English.) The inclusion of an IPA representation of the pronunciation of each word would be useful in all circumstances, not just a few. Ive reviewed all the previous versions of this app, have given them all 5 stars, and have ended each of those reviews with a suggestion that you, the reader, purchase both this app, and the Robert dictionaries. I can no longer make that recommendation. I dont see any reason to suggest the purchase of this one. If you want a monolingual dictionary of the scale of a "pocket" or "travelers" dictionary, there are better choices. If you want a dictionary of the scale of a good collegiate, this isnt it, although it used to be. So — who is this dictionary for? Who is the target buyer? I cant imagine, frankly. Ive been trying to decide who might think that this is just what theyre looking for, but I cant think of anyone. Maybe a bright collégian; but even au lycée, a better dictionary is called for. Personally, in a week, Im traveling to my second home in France for the next 3 months; during that time, I dont think Ill launch this app even once. Its too bad; I used to like to compare the definitions from my Larousse and my Robert to get a more complete understanding of an unfamiliar word. However, this dictionary has been dumbed down enough that the exercise is no longer worth doing.

Suggestions & Review

Please consider having the x for deleting an entry in the text box present whenever text is present. Would be much more convenient. Also, if possible, disallow Apples text correction which is, in this app, useless and annoying (but useful elsewhere). Perhaps one day computers will become clever enough to speak multiple languages at the same time. For the rest of you: yes, this is the best French dictionary available. Lachetez!

Superb reference--please offer Spanish counterpart

This is a superb all-French dictionary that almost never lets me down, even for very obscure words and expressions. I keep hoping that Larousse will offer its all-Spanish counterpart based on the Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado. That would be linguistic heaven.

Excellent reference

Great app all around. While I have not used it to look up pronunciation, I have found every word searched and found elaborate and informative definitions. In addition, it is so practical to have definitions and conjugation tables in the same location. My favorite feature of this app is that it records a history of searched words, and has a favorites list where you can save definitions. Fantastic way to learn and remember new words - I speak French and English fluently, and still do this for words to expand my vocabulary. Thanks for this high quality app, Larousse!

English Professor

The dictionary looks promising but the pronunciation feature doesnt work. There is no sound. When I try to go to Ap support, there are only commercials.

PERFECT!!!

Sinonyms Antonyms Pronunciation w sound Expressions Super complete

  • send link to app